Last week, the California Land Surveyors Association invited Aerotas co-founder Daniel Katz to present a webinar to their members on best practices in drone surveying. With the experience from training and equipping several hundred surveyors nationwide to get best-in-class accuracy and ROI from drone technology, and completing thousands of drone photogrammetry and linework drafting projects, the Aerotas team has learned a great deal about what it takes to benefit from drone technology.

With the popularity of of UAVs in commercial applications increasing, more and more companies are regularly coming across the question of what is the best way to process drone data. There are lots of different options out there, and this article will describe the three major categories of how to process data, and the pros and cons of each one. Overall, there is no universal best answer. The best way to process data depends on the needs of each individual company.

With Aerotas' position as the preeminent provider of drone solutions for land surveyors, we constantly field questions from surveyors about various components of drone technology. This is the second in a 3-part series of articles in Point of Beginning magazine, summarizing our current analysis on key components of drone survey technology. This article focuses on the sensor options we most commonly get questions about -- particularly LiDAR.

Last week, the California Land Surveyors Association invited Aerotas co-founder Daniel Katz to present a webinar to their members on best practices in drone surveying. With the experience from training and equipping several hundred surveyors nationwide to get best-in-class accuracy and ROI from drone technology, and completing thousands of drone photogrammetry and linework drafting projects, the Aerotas team has learned a great deal about what it takes to benefit from drone technology.

Point of Beginning magazine asked Aerotas co-founders Daniel Katz and Logan Campbell to analyze the various components of drone technology that go into an effective drone survey program. They evaluated three key technologies across three articles: drone airframes, sensors, and georeferencing options. In each article they take an independent and analytical approach to evaluate which drone technology option is best for land surveyors. The first article focuses on drone airframes.

In a guest article on Commercial UAV News, Aerotas co-founder Daniel Katz discusses some of the misconceptions Aerotas sees surveyors frequently bring to their drone program decision-making. Many surveyors often that they need to choose a drone billed as "professional grade," but What matters is accuracy and ROI.

The FAA has officially started rolling out the system that allows instantaneous airspace authorizations. LAANC is the FAA’s new system for permitting commercial drone pilots to fly legally in controlled airspace near airports instantaneously, rather than the previous months-long manual process. This program is a huge boon for surveyors and engineers who work near airports, however there are a few things to know about LAANC before going out and flying next to a runway.

In the most recent issue of Point of Beginning magazine, Aerotas co-founders Logan Campbell and Daniel Katz lay out the basic expectations for a surveyor using a drone: what they should be getting, and what it should cost the in money, time, and staff. Ultimately what this translates to is getting the best possible cost/benefit ratio, so that the return on investment for the drone program happens as soon as possible

In their report “8 Commercial Drone Predictions for 2018,” Commercial UAV News interviewed Aerotas Co-Founder Daniel Katz. Katz weighed in on key themes that Aerotas has been seeing in the land survey drone space. One theme that came out of this interview is how the land surveyors are now starting to demand that their drone solutions get them all the way to the finish line; to the valuable final survey deliverable they need, not just a pretty picture.

Rebuilding homes after a natural disaster like a wildfire can be tough. And while it’s hardest on the homeowner, it can be a difficult process for those who have to work on the project as well, including land surveyors. Thankfully, drone technology can help make this process smoother. This article details the technical process for how Aerotas client WM Surveys is using their Aerotas Mapping System drone for land surveying after a wildfire.